He’s really looking forward to light rail reaching his Queensway Terrace community — eventually — but he wants to keep an eye out for one thing: the planned pedestrian bridge that will connect the future Queensview station to the neighbourhoods on the south side of Highway 417.

“I’m just concerned that the bridge (will) be put off because the city runs out of money,” said Plunkett, as he studied one of the placards on display Thursday evening at the first open house for the western LRT extension from Lincoln Fields to Bayshore.

Plunkett is right to keep an eye on that bridge. After all, stranger things have happened, especially in that community.

The new LRT route is still in the early planning stages — and there are all kinds of approvals and funding that need to be secured over the next couple of years before construction begins in 2018 — but it’s already being seen as a huge improvement over the transit plans for the area just five years ago.

If you don’t regularly travel through the area, you might have forgotten the controversy over the previous LRT strategy for the area. The city wanted to build a dedicated transit route that would run from Lincoln Fields, southwest through Connaught Park and west along the Queensway to the Bayshore Shopping Centre. Which sounds good, except that the plan also called for flattening a row of houses on the south side of Roman Avenue. Not surprisingly, the folks living on Roman were not too enamoured by the idea.

Partly because of the contentious bulldoze-the-houses-on-Roman element (which was that ward’s hot-button issue in the 2010 election), and partly because that segment of the transitway was more expensive to build, the city put it off. Instead, it built dedicated bus lanes from Bayshore to Pinecrest, and for years it has been trying to figure out how to connect it to the main transitway system that runs along Pinecrest Creek. (In the meantime, OC Transpo buses have been using precious room on the 417 to bridge the two systems.)

The proposed LRT extension would finally connect Lincoln Fields and Bayshore in one dedicated track, and the community would get an extra station in Queensview to boot. So it’s no wonder that, generally speaking anyway, the community welcomes light rail.

But Queensview station is of little use to the Queensway Terrace South neighbourhood if residents there can’t get to it. That’s why the pedestrian and cycling bridge — not unlike the one being installed over the 417 at Coventry Road this very weekend — is so important. The community is right to make sure plans for that key piece of infrastructure aren’t quietly slipped into abeyance.

City transportation planners still aren’t sure where to put the bridge. It could connect onto Baxter Road (where the Citizen newsroom is located), to keep public assets on public assets. Or the bridge could bring folks into the Pinecrest Shopping Centre, which is anchored by the ginormous Ikea. If the city goes that route, it would press the Swedish housewares giant to pony up some cash for the project, in the way that the Rideau Centre has paid an as-yet-unknown sum to connect to the downtown LRT tunnel.

(Before you say that no one wants to take transit to Ikea, think again. At Toronto’s west-end location, the store runs a free shuttle to the nearest subway station seven days a week all year round, so clearly people are willing to shop for Billy bookcases — or a least tea lights — by transit.)

The bridge isn’t the only unknown on the project. Among other questions are the ones surrounding the 200- to 300-metre-long tunnel — yes, there’s another tunnel! — that goes through National Capital Commission land. Dealing with the NCC on this detail won’t be anything like the tug of war between the city and the NCC over using green space by the Ottawa River for the LRT extension in Westboro. For one thing, this plan has been on the books since 1994, so it’s not new to anyone involved. But it’s certainly not a done deal.

Still, it’s heartening to see residents rather enthusiastic, or at least keenly interested, in a city project instead of infuriated by it.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.